


Nobler Things

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Series: No Yesterdays [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stargate Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 07:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15859203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: This isn’t the worst assignment Michael’s ever had, but there are moments when it ranks right up there with the time he was stationed in the ass-end of nowhere literally watching paint dry.Only, you know, somehow worse.





	Nobler Things

**Author's Note:**

> [Because reasons.](https://vagrantblvrd.tumblr.com/post/177592381266/the-last-two-minecraft-videos-be-i-pimping-and)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (It's been forever since I've written for the Stargate fandom, and so many liberties were taken with this. So. Many. /o\\)

This isn’t the worst assignment Michael’s ever had, but there are moments when it ranks right up there with the time he was stationed in the ass-end of nowhere literally watching paint dry.

Only, you know, somehow worse.

“Dig Squad, how’s it going?”

Michael groans, sharing a look with Alfredo who’s leaning up against the cave wall like an asshole. Stupid grin on his face and so damn amused by this shit.

 _Dr._ Haywood sounds distracted. Like whatever “once in a lifetime find” he’s studying is more important than checking to see if his teammates have been horribly killed in the caves he sent them down into half an hour ago.

“Peachy,” Michael says, ignoring Alfredo’s grin. “Everyone still alive up there?”

Lindsay’s up top with the military component of various gate teams, so he’s not worried about the eggheads too much. 

Still, there’s a thing about tempting fate out here, and a long track record of teams not making it home because they got too overconfident. Forgot that for all the strides they’ve made since the SGC came into play, the universe is a big place and humans are still scrambling to catch up. 

Lot of people out here who have it out for them, and even more trouble waiting to be discovered that doesn’t care which side they’re on so long as they die, so.

“No signs of pretty rocks down here,” Michael says. “No shiny doodads, either.”

Alfredo coughs into his shoulder to muffle his laughter, and Michael can’t help his own little smirk at the bewildered silence from the good doctor.

Brilliant guy, Ryan, but when he falls into egghead mode he tends to forget about other things. Gets all caught up in what he’s doing, all that brain power dedicated to science, and things like social niceties suffer for it.

“Uh...”

“Seems safe enough down here for the moment, though,” Michael says. “We can bring one of your teams down here whenever you’re ready.”

Another pause, and then Ryan’s back, all excited nerd over some rocks, but hey, not Michael’s place to judge. (If it was, though, he’d have so much to judge. So. Much.)

“Alright, alright, we’re on out way up. See you in ten, Doc.”

“Thank you, Major,” Ryan says, quiet and sincere. “I really do appreciate it.”

Michael ignores the look Alfredo gives him when Ryan thanks him. Too much honesty in it like the idiot’s not used to someone in a uniform actually doing his damn job. 

Which.

It’s easy, okay? All he has to do is make it easier for Ryan to do his job, and everyone’s happy.

None of this this bullying the eggheads when Stargate Command isn’t looking, cowing them into submission the way some assholes do.

“Michael.”

Michael gives Alfredo a grateful look for breaking him out of that little spiral, and clears his throat.

“On our way up now, Doc.”

=======

The thing about the SGC is that they snatch up all these lunatic scientist types from all over.

Ryan’s a prime example, this idiot with a brilliant mind and so damn stupid about everything.

Used to working with the military because they offer the shiniest toys, but real bad at figuring out how normal people interact.

And then there’s fucking _Gavin_ , who – Michael doesn’t even know what the idiot does, just that he’s the stupidest smart person he’s ever met.

Trevor, who is a horrible human being, and worst of all, gets along too damn well with Alfredo.

The two of them just meshing perfectly after Alfredo signed on, and now everyone is suffering.

“Christ,” Michael mutters, watching the Twins walking past, _giggling_.

The mess hall is mostly empty at this hour, recently returned teams like Michael's taking a moment to grab something to eat before they tackle mission reports and other bullshit.

Beside him, Ryan chuckles, like Alfredo and Trevor could ever be up to anything good.

“You worry too much.”

Michael rolls his eyes and stabs a baby carrot a little more aggressively than he meant to, fork scraping his tray with this ungodly noise.

“And you, asshole, don’t worry nearly enough,” Michael snaps.

Because this is Ryan he’s talking to, the fucker huffs out this little laugh. Leaning his chin on his hand as he watches Michael. All soft and fond and shit, and Michael kind of hates him for it.

He hasn’t been on Ryan’s team all that long, less than a year by this point, but for a gate team like theirs, it’s a long damn time.

Missions gone wrong and more than enough close calls for a lifetime, and for whatever reason they just pick themselves up and go do it all over again.

And Ryan, okay.

He’s so fucking smart, and so fucking stupid at the same time. 

Put up with some piece of shit push him around because then at least he could still go through the Stargate, visit other worlds and play with advanced alien tech. Like someone was doing him a favor, instead of realizing the General would never stand for that kind of behavior from one of his people. That bastard Grant was the exact kind of person the program _didn’t_ want.

But that was what made Grant so damn successful. Fucking with the scientists until he’d ended up on Ryan’s team and someone finally did something about him. Figured out what Grant had been up to all this time, a pointless power trip for a small-dicked bastard.

“Well,” Ryan says, slight southern drawl to it, and this amused little smile on his face. “That’s what I have you for, isn’t it?”

Michael's eyes narrow.

“What I’m hearing,” he says, fork aimed at Ryan’s face. “Is that you want more time in the gym for sparring matches because I swear to Christ, Doc, if you pull another stunt like you did on Volcano-world, I’ll shoot you myself.”

Ryan makes a face at that because hates it when Michael or the others force him to learn to defend himself. Like they’re asking for something so completely unreasonable for shits and giggles and not because they want to stay the fuck alive.

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” he protests, but it’s weak at best because he’s not entirely stupid.

Knows if Michael doesn’t drag him down there Lindsay sure as hell will because she likes having a partner in crime around to torment others with

Michael shrugs.

“Yeah, well. Work on your fucking words, then, asshole.”

========

“So,” Ryan says, sounding tired and pained and like he’s just had the shit beaten out of him, which. You know, he has. “I feel the need to confess something.”

Michael thumps his head against the rough brick of the wall at his back, manacles rattling.

It hasn’t been a good day for either of them.

P3X-whatever was supposed to be uninhabited. No need to inadvertently offend the locals as Ryan poked about the old ruins with his fellow eggheads. 

Michael indulging him as they followed a signal Ryan picked up on one of his gadgets. Leaving Lindsay and Alfredo kept an eye on the others, and then _bam_ , fucking smugglers.

Mean looking bunch with stolen Zat guns. Michael's warning to Ryan coming too late to help, and now here they are. 

All chained up with nowhere to go, and he hopes like hell the others are okay.

“Is now really the time for that?” Michael asks, trying to slip his hand through the metal cuffs around his wrists again. He can get out of them, but it’s going to fucking hurt.

There’s no answer, and when Michael looks over Ryan’s watching him with this oddly serious look on his face.

“I knew what Grant was doing,” Ryan says, eyes dropping away from Michael’s. “But the General was dealing with the Trust’s latest attempt, and we’d just lost two gate teams.”

Michael isn’t sure he wants to know where this is going.

“And Grant,” Ryan says, more venom from him than Michael’s ever heard. “He got some of my people killed on a mission. I’m sure you know which one I’m talking about.”

Michael does. 

He’d read every mission report of Grant’s he could get his hands on when the bastard was exposed, when Michael found out he was going to be getting his team.

A mission over a year ago now, with Grant’s previous team. A Goa-uld attack that where Grant was the lone survivor. Hailed as a hero and not the lying bastard he was.

“Doc - “

“People like him underestimate people like me,” Ryan says, pushing himself up to his knees, determined look on his face. “And that’s always a mistake.”

Michael’s watching Ryan closely because right now he’s not the awkward egghead he’s gotten to know. 

The idiot who gushes over stupid shiny, glowy rocks or a fancy piece of alien tech. The moron who can’t block to save his life, and the idiot Michael’s shared a coffee with in the mess hall late at night when all their close calls and losses get to be too much and sleep is an elusive fucker.

Ryan looks dangerous, this edge to him he’s never seen. Someone who takes his responsibilities to the scientists working under him, would do something really fucking stupid for them in a heartbeat.

“Doc?”

Ryan smiles. Blood on his teeth and this faint wheeze to his breathing because the fuckers worked him over good, convinced he had information they wanted. 

“It took some time,” Ryan says, and he reaches for his shirt pocket, pulls out a little metal key, smiling at the look of shock on Michael's face when he recognizes it. “But if you’re patient, people like him ruin themselves.”

Ryan leans in close as Michael twists around to let him get to the cuffs.

“They just need a little push in the right direction,” Ryan says, and with a soft _click_ , the manacles open.

Michael pulls back as he massages his wrist to get circulation going again, and can’t look away from Ryan. Still too fucking close, this _look_ in his eyes.

Not the mousy little egghead everyone knows him as right now, and it’s honestly a little terrifying.

Everyone knows you don’t antagonize the scientists because they’re all smarter than them and have ways of making you suffer in the smallest, pettiest ways. Know how to bend the rules just so that they don’t face reprimand, and when it comes down to it a scientist is more valuable than any idiot who knows how to shoot a gun.

The smart ones do, at any rate. The ones who have a healthy respect for what the scientists do, who aren’t complete idiots or twisted little monsters.

Making an idiot out of any of them is a bad idea, but try it with Ryan? You’re fucked.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Michael says, because what the actual fucking hell? “It doesn’t matter what was going on, the General would have done something if you’d just fucking said!”

Ryan blinks, clearly not expecting that reaction.

“...What?”

Michael sighs, because maybe Ryan is the stupidest smart person Michael knows. Gavin, at least, wouldn’t pull this kind of shit. (Probably. Christ, wait. He would, and fucking hell, Michael regrets ever befriending any of these assholes.)

“You get that our job is to look after you assholes, right?” A gross simplification, but come on, Ryan’s a moron. “That includes protecting you idiots from people like Grant.”

Or should, anyway, and thank God General Ramsey believes wholeheartedly in that or things would be so much more different. (The Trust would have gotten what they wanted, and everything would be fucked.)

Ryan has this unreadable expression on his face, and it’s making Michael uneasy. Worried that Ryan thinks he’s lying to him, but that’s around the time the explosions start, so, you know. 

Not a lot of time for meaningful discussions.

Later though, once Lindsay and Alfredo are done teaching these smuggling bastards a lesson.

========

Ryan avoids Michael for the next several days, always leaving the room just as Michael enters it and other Scooby Doo bullshit, so he takes drastic measures.

Goes down to that dark, dank, little lab Trevor inhabits like some kind of horrible little goblin.

“I need your help,” he says, and feels like he’s signing over his soul at the way Trevor’s eyes light up. “Ryan’s a goddamned idiot.”

Trevor cocks his head to the side.

“You know,” he says, like he’s not sure if this is a good thing or not. “I’ve heard the same said about you.”

Michael scowls, because it’s sounding a hell of a lot like their scientists don’t trust them to police themselves. 

And that's a problem, because it means there might be more bastards like Grant hiding in plain sight, and they’re too stupid to see it for themselves. That their scientists are too afraid to come out and tell them for fear of repercussions, which.

Kind of the reason Michael needs to talk to Ryan, because the other scientists look up to him for some godforsaken reason.

Trevor must see some of that in Michael’s face, or maybe Ryan’s being a menace again, who fucking knows.

“Alright,” he says, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

========

There’s a little storage room below the labs. 

Quiet, out of the way. Leaky pipes overhead that had them pulling everything out of there until it gets fixed, so of course it’s been six months with no progress on that front.

It’s also where Trevor’s directions lead Michael.

Inside, Ryan’s working on something. Laptop humming away, and this wide-eyed look on his face when he sees Michael.

“Hey, Doc,” Michael greets, annoyance and residual anger draining out of him at the sight of Ryan’s face.

He’s a damn mess, all horrible bruising and a brace on his wrist. Hunched down into this little ball and looking as close to vulnerable as Michael’s ever seen him.

Hiding out with his laptop and a six pack of diet soda - generic store brand, so Michael knows it’s bad – and his scruff is starting to look distinctly hobo-ish. 

“Major,” Ryan says, eyes darting to the door as it clicks shut behind Michael. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Michael watches him for a long, long moment, and sighs as he folds himself down to a sitting position where he is. Doesn’t want to get too close to Ryan because he looks jumpy, but hell if he’s going to let bastard run on him again.

“Lindsay and Alfredo interrupted our little heart-to-heart back there,” he says, lips witching at the grimace that crosses Ryan’s face. “And you’ve been _super_ busy since we good back, but I figure now’s a good time to talk.”

Ryan locks himself down again, blank expression as he sits up straight, proper posture and all.

“Or not,” Michael says slowly, because pushing Ryan is never a good thing. “But I want you you to understand if something like Grant happens again, you can go to the General if you feel like can’t talk to me about it. Don’t fucking put yourself at risk the way you did.”

Grant was a real piece of work, and they’re still trying to untangle everything he did. This horrible suspicion that he’d personally dealt with people who _were_ going to go through the proper channels and report him. (That his former teammates weren’t killed by the Goa-uld after all, and the attack gave him the perfect alibi.)

The whole situation is fucked, and Michael doesn’t blame Ryan for what he did, just wishes it hadn’t been necessary.

“Geoff gave me a choice,” Ryan says, and whatever is on his laptop must be fascinating because he’s not looking at Michael. “After...Grant. Showed me the files for prospective team leaders, members. He said after everything I deserved to choose for myself, for the others.”

Unorthodox as hell, but that’s the SGC at its core, when you get down to it. You either lean to adapt once you get here, or you flounder, no in between.

Grant’s - _Ryan’s_ \- team is structured a little differently than most gate teams. Military team leader and two subordinates and Ryan, as well as Gavin and Trevor when their expertise is needed. 

Headache inducing, but they’re usually not on first-contact missions. Go to planets other teams have vetted as safe for further exploration to let the egghead run wild with adult supervision, so it works, for the most part.

After Grant, the General had the military component of the team reassigned, and Michael was given Lindsay and later Alfredo when he joined the SGC to round out the team.

“…And you chose _me?_ ” Michael asks, not sure what to do with that because he knows what he is, alright. A loud-mouthed idiot who’s somehow managed to survive this long. No prize when it comes down to it, nothing special that should have caught Ryan’s eye over the other prospects. “Why?”

Ryan gives him a _look_.

“Gavin likes you,” he says simply, like Gavin’s opinion of him should hold so much weight. “More than that, he trusts you.”

Gavin’s an idiot.

Ryan’s lips quirk up, and Michael scowls as he realizes he said that out loud.

“You’re not wrong,” Ryan says. “But his judgment when it comes to people is rarely faulty.”

That’s a lie, but Michael lets it slide, because Ryan has a point in there somewhere.

Gavin’s not a hundred percent on people, but he’s better than most Michael’s seen. Has enough people at his back that there has to be something to what Ryan’s saying.

“And you’re the stupidest smart person I know,” Michael says, because the guy needs to know this. 

Ryan snorts, tension bleeding out of him. 

“Fair.”

And that’s about as close to talking about this whole mess as they're going to get for now, Michael knows. Ryan’s just going to talk around it, exhaust Michael until he gives up, and he’s not interested in playing that old game at the moment.

“The hell are you down here working on anyway?”

Ryan glances at his laptop, like he’d forgotten he had it.

“Uh.”

“Ryan.”

Ryan grimaces as he turns the laptop to show Michael what seems to be a compilation of cat videos.,

“Gavin sends them to me when he hits a wall on his work,” he explains, looking sheepish about it.

The odd friendship Ryan and Gavin has continues to baffle Michael and everyone around them.

“Huh,” Michael says, because he’d been expecting something along the lines of Ryan obsessing over his latest finds or reading an academic paper. Not watching cat videos.

But, hey. It’s not Michael’s place to judge. (He is though, hardcore)

“Move over,” Michael says, and doesn’t give Ryan time to protest as he sits next to him.

On the laptop screen there’s a tiny kitten struggling to climb a set of stairs and screaming about it to the world.

Ryan freezes when their shoulders brush, and for a brief moment Michael’s concerned he’s crossed a line somewhere. Managed to offend Ryan somehow, but then he huffs, adjusting the laptop so Michael can see the screen better.

The two of them are busy people, fate of the world on their shoulders and the shoulders of everyone here and however else that goes, but - 

The world’s not going to end if a pair of idiots like them watch stupid cat videos for a while, and they deserve the chance to take a few minutes to themselves when they can.

“Shouldn’t we - “ 

“No,” Michael says. “The others have things under control. Shut up and watch the dumb kittens.”

Trevor knows where they are if something happens or someone needs them, that’s good enough for Michael.

“Okay,” Ryan says softly.

And if Michael’s being a little bit selfish for the chance to get the idiot to himself like this? Well, that’s his little secret.


End file.
